Vineyard
Founded in 1997, Mitchella is a family owned estate vineyard and winery proudly located in the rolling hills east of Paso Robles, sitting a top the Huerhuero Creek which brings morning fog and cooling afternoon winds. Darren and Angela Mitchell are committed to making small lots of premium handcrafted Paso Robles wines and believe it starts by attentively cultivating quality wine in the vineyard.
At Mitchella, our mission is to produce and sell outstanding estate wines by balancing Environmentally Sound Practices with Economic Feasibility and Socially Equitable principles. We believe that sustainable agriculture rests on the principle that we must meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability for future generations to meet their own needs.
In doing this, we will follow these guidelines:
- The winery operations will adhere to the best current practices of environmental safety and safety in preparation of food products.
- We will be a good neighbor to the landowners in our area. All operations will be conducted in a way to minimize disturbances to our neighbors, and we will bear our fair share of expenses that may be incurred by the community as a result of our operations.
- We will treat our employees and contractors humanely, fairly, and consistently, and we will always be willing to discuss problems and differences in an equitable manner.
- A key characteristic of Mitchella Vineyard & Winery is the care taken in creating the products. Darren and Angela stress cleanliness and quality control in all aspects of production. Their goal is to make sure the vineyard and winery operations are in conformance with the “Code of Sustainable Winegrowing Practices” developed by the California Sustainable Winegrowers Alliance.
On the grower side, harvest 2007, yielded the smallest crop in ten years. On the production side, we purchased a chiller and began producing Roussanne,Viognier, and Roses for 2008, increasing production to nearly 1000 cases; anything that is not estate grown is sourced from only Paso Robles AVA growers. It is the owners’ ambition to make only the finest wines. Mitchella will always be a small winery, producing no more than 5000 cases per year.
A Rant: The vineyards in “East” Paso Robles are not flat!
Clarification: Vineyards in the Paso Robles AVA are planted at elevations of about 720 feet to 1,800 feet above sea level on both the west and east sides of the Salinas River. Both the absolute elevations and the relief (difference between highest and lowest elevations) are the same for the vineyards to the west and east of the Salinas River. Furthermore, vineyards are found planted on a diversity of slopes in both areas, from flat ground to steep hillsides, and from small valley floors to ridgelines.
